Maybe on balance, though, I have to say I like the guy. Not because of what he says and does, really, but because whether I agree with him or not he plays less of that p.r. game than anyone else.

What other managers are going to call out ESPN like that? What other managers are going to speak their mind like La Russa does, even if his mind is often totally whack? Ozzie Guillen does. Bobby Cox will on some very narrow topics. Charlie Manuel does in my mind. Not too many others will. Obviously that’s a function of job security — La Russa has the closest thing to a job for life as any manager — but it probably has to do with temperament too. I don’t necessarily care for La Russa, but I’m glad he’s around.

No point to this, really. Twitter has been down for almost two hours now, and I don’t have anyone else with whom to share my lame musings, so you all get it.

Twitter is down? Right before a holiday weekend? When Brazil lost because of an own goal and Dr. Jekyll Burnett is in the park? How will we survive?
Anyhoo, I love the Home Run Derby. I love it so much that I listened to it on the radio last year when I didn’t have access to it any other way. It’s fun. It would be more fun if the sluggers we wanted to see would play. But it’s been fun long after similar events – the slam dull tournament with Krypto-Nate Robinson, for example – have become irrelevant.
The All-Star Game, by comparison, is not fun now, since it’s usually a fairly low-scoring exhibition of great pitchers pitching for one inning each. It was starting to be like that before the Home Run Derby. It will stay that way as long as managers are allowed to do what they dream of doing every night with a staff of aces and superstar closers. (And this is why the AL has such a leg up till SuperMo retires.)

See, at some point someone convinced you that the word “liberal” is an epithet. Such a shame that your brain is so small and closed that you couldn’t appreciate that someone can have different political views from you and not be evil, awful or a “stinkin'” anything.
Yes, I am a liberal. I’m quite proud of and confident in my political views. Does that threaten you?